The thing is Fund and Segretti and Atwater and Rove they know ( or knew in Atwater's case and in the end he was sorry) what buttons to push. You know to Segretti it may have just been "fun" and "pranks" but it ended up becoming the main course rather than a side dish at that dinner table you are talking about, Bear...and like revenge it's a dish best served cold.

Fund gets both Maher and Garofalo to say what he wants them to say...they both call large segments of the general public "dumb" and paint them as "fools" or easily fooled. Fund and his ilk can then use these quotes against them and use them to coddle this same segment of the public into taking their side. Fund and his pals can then paint them and anybody who likes them as the "liberal elite"...see this is how it works. Fund is not really trying to "win" the argument, he's trying to make the others lose it. He feeds them rope and let's them hang themselves. Watch it again and pay close attention to the fact that Fund never once attempts to win a point. He inserts things into the conversation and as he does Garofalo becomes more and more disturbed. Fund might look outnumbered but his mouth is watering. He's got not just one "liberal elitist" to bait but a group and in groups he knows they are even more likely to say the things he wants them to say. Maher and Garofalo, it's interesting to point out, never see this coming.

This is what putting Palin on the ticket is all about. Palin is bait. Bait for the Christian Conservatives and bait for the "Liberals" and both sides have taken the bait. The Christian Conservatives love their shiney new candidate and as the "Liberals" (or socialist baby killing maggots) go after her they say things that the Roves and Funds of the world can use to further manipulate the process. Having a weak candidate with no qualifications actually works in their favor in this way. Of course it is absurd that Palin is on the ticket but Fund and Rove can laugh about that all the way to the bank. They dangle her out there and she looks stupid and they go on tv and say "Oh, that was a gotcha question." or "Oh, he looked so condescending as he spoke to her." or "Oh, he was so hard on her nobody else would be asked those questions." these things are all nonsense but notice they are designed not to win a point but to piss people off and create doubt. If you can do that you win.

So, while Fund may have been "wrong" and the other folks there "right" it doesn't matter because Fund never tried to argue about what is right or wrong. Fund was only trying to paint a picture or create some "word art" and that he did do.